Lest Auld Acquaintance be Forgot

I'm reluctant to lock horns with a Large Mammal big beast like Norm, but he's only gone and dug up the Euston Manifesto again. Remember that? And he's only gone and chosen to highlight the bit about it that really makes my hackles rise. So much for uniting the left, then.

Anyway, now that I've fallen out with Haloscan, in the interests of keeping track of the comments (if any), I'll repost here what I had said about it in another incarnation:

Some blokes sit in pub, solve world's ills

"You may be aware that a number of people have got together in the attempt to revitalise the democratic and progressive, er, left, for want of a better term, and have come up with a document that's generating lots of heat if not very much light.

The trouble is not just that it isn't an inspiring text - there may be a small prize offered for anyone that can dig out of there a quotation which would have me manning personning the barricades. It is more that, in and amongst the paragraphs with which I would tend to agree, there is a pernicious attempt to equate criticism of American and Israeli state policy with blanket Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism. I'm sorry, but that just will not do. Bad policies are bad policies, and vice versa, regardless of their origin. Hell, I was born in Bradford, but I reject an awful lot of the Blair administration's policies. Does that make me anti-British? If so, you'd better have a bloody good definition of Britishness ready.

In fact, there seems to be more about how hard-done-by the poor Bush administration is than there is about the tyranny the Eustonites ostensibly reject in principle 2. Two quick examples, and there will be many more: Why no mention of Uzbekistan? Anyone with the slightest ear for blogging might have heard a bit of criticism for that gem of a state. My own specialist country is Russia, which is likewise no beacon of democracy; I don't know if you know, but there are some nasty things still going on in Chechnya... I guess the news doesn't percolate through to Euston.

There is probably much more to go at, but I'm already bored of it. The last canard I will highlight here is the line that terrorism can never be "understandable". FFS, get a good dictionary, and learn the difference between understand and condone. If you never even try to understand the terrorists' motives, how will you ever hope to win the War on Terror, assuming you accept that such a concept is a valid way of framing the issues involved? You're dooming yourself to fail on your own terms.

It's bollocks, and deserves to be called as much. The Eustonites have got a measure so they and we know how many people have read it and signed. I'd like to propose a measure for those people who have read the thing but reject it. It's not scientific, but it's no less so than signing the manifesto itself, which only asks for a name and an e-mail address. Register your rejection here."

Happy New Year to one and all.

Soap Opera

One of the joys of Blogpower is the diverse range of opinions you can find in the collectivity, even if I am just a little concerned at the apparent overall tendency to dress to the right . Sometimes, however, my enjoyment is, shall we say, stretched. This is the reaction of Central News to a "story" in The Sun about the alleged reluctance of Muslims to use hand-washing gel due to its alcohol content:

If Muslims refuse to wash their hands they should be banned from the hospital unless they are seriously ill.

I'm using scare quotes around story because I don't consider The Sun to be a reliable source. This is an inflammatory article - I can't hear the dog-whistle myself, but Central News,and especially alanorei in the comments, give me good cause to think it was sounded.

But hang on, what's this?

Health professionals also transmit infection by failing to decontaminate their hands effectively before and after contact with MRSA-positive patients.

On Central News' logic, then, we should be banning health professionals from hospitals. It should also be noted that hand cleanliness is only one of the factors determining infection rates:

Nevertheless, maintaining good hand hygiene is not the only infection control measure for health professionals. Other standard precautions include maintaining cleanliness of the work environment (including horizontal surfaces, sinks, equipment, soft furnishings); disposing of waste safely; and avoiding overcrowding patients. Gloves should be worn when there is potential contact with non-intact skin or mucous membranes, or when there is a risk of contact with blood and/or body fluids. It is recommended that nurses working in GP practices should have a regular planned, written and monitored cleaning schedule that details the items and environments to be cleaned before and after each clinic session, as well as daily, weekly, monthly and annually. Cleaning equipment, such as vacuums and floor scrubbing machines, should be properly maintained. [same source, footnote references removed.]

Lastly, the Sun does offer a perfectly sensible solution at the end of the article: make soap and water available. Which makes more sense, to ban a section of society, or to plumb in a sink? That, of course, depends on your agenda.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to go and wash my hands.

God as Metaphor?

This is a slightly edited version of a comment I have left for Alex. I am slightly hesitant to repost, but as I said there "there is passion, eloquence and insight - you set a high standard, and whatever level I actually achieve I promise I am at least striving to approach yours." At least here, I only have my own standards to live down up to. I may well, in addition, be retreading familiar theological ground, in which I case I hope you'll let me know. So, is it useful to see God as Metaphor?

I should start by stating that the militant atheism of my younger days has softened into agnosticism, a feeling that the God I am now not sure about has not been adequately evoked by any religion. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is a supreme being, then for me, like in Highlander, there can be only one, and the different traditions are each describing Him (for want of a better pronoun) incompletely. This applies yet more to traditions which have a pantheon of deities rather than just the one. To me, each such deity represents only one or several aspects of the One. Blind men and elephants are often evoked in this context, I believe.

If, as Alex argues, and it seems a reasonable contention, literature does represent one way in which mankind struggles to find meaning, then is religion just a specialised version of this search? I understand that, for those who can, reading the Koran in Arabic provides great aesthetic pleasure, aside from anything else. Even as an agnostic, I respond positively to the English rhythms of the King James Bible.

The same argument, incidentally, could apply to scientific theories seeking to explain the world, including that part of it that relates to our morality. It is simply a metaphor framed in very different terms, albeit one I personally am finding increasingly limited.

There are universal codes of ethics, acts which all societies decree taboo, even if more minor details tend to differ; consider, for example, dietary requirements. Similarly, all societies develop religions, myths and epics. Each of these could be thought to represent a literary effort to explain us and our origins, including that of our moral codes. Understanding that it is a metaphor ought not to lessen the richness of the story, nor invalidate the particular precepts of a given story as tenets to live by. It may in addition have the beneficial side-effect of reducing the attraction of fundamentalist interpretations. Those who would seek the remains of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat or insist that the world literally was created in seven days miss the point in spectacular fashion.

And so I suppose I agree to a large extent with Matt in the debate that sparked off these musings: we do not need an external source for our life to have meaning. But I may differ in arguing we can use God as a metaphor for the drive within us to seek meaning, which may be compellingly satisfied for many by religious belief. In that sense, I believe.

The Myth of the Monolith

Further to the debate being hosted by Gracchi: when Amy Gutmann set out to discover the Mormon attitude to polygamy, she discovered there was no such thing: ever since Joseph Smith espoused the idea, views among Mormons have differed, and opinions do not split cleanly along gender or economic lines. If there is such debate within Mormonism, which outsiders tend to see as the archetypal monolithic religion, then why is it that so many people insist on seeing Islam in the same way?

Gracchi offered elsewhere a fascinating way of looking at religion, which I would like to quote from at some length:

The best way of thinking about religion, is imagining a football field- everyone is playing football but takes up different positions on the field conditioned obviously by the way that the field is set up, but there are people on the left and right. Islam in this analogy sets the field for debate, but the players choose their position and whereas Islam gives them material for debate, it doesn't define how the material is used.

The analogy is apparently drawn from linguistic theory, but ties in surprisingly well with an important contribution to nationalism theory made by Rogers Brubaker, in which he argues inter alia that groups should not be seen as homogenous, but as political fields (my emphasis) on which contrasting ideas are played out. I take this to mean it is not just entirely possible for two groups to claim they represent the "true" nature of, say, Christianity, and yet be entirely at odds with each other, but that such differences of opinion - and all shades in between - are inevitable. To ignore this factor devalues all the other points we may wish to make about a particular group.

A further relevant point I have come to through looking at nationalism theory in some detail over the past year or so is the idea that identity is constructed rather than primordial. (The name of this blog is a tribute to one of the better-known arguments along this line.) This is not to deny the power of national belonging- as Anderson himself says, the First World War was a powerful demonstration of how people are prepared "willingly to die for such limited imaginings".

He also develops Hegel’s notion of the newspaper as substitute for morning prayers into newspaper reading as an act of secular worship, the object of which is the nation, as part of his argument that nationalism is best understood in terms of kinship or religious belonging rather than in terms of other -isms. Given the emotional power of appeals to religion or nation, we should be immediately suspicious of anyone claiming "authenticity", and to examine their motives extremely closely. This applies to both the proponents and the opponents of a particular position.

The fact that Islam cannot possibly be monolithic seems to me so self-evident as to be scarcely worth mentioning. And yet. It obviously suits a small number to lump all Muslims in with the extremist minority, but an inability to distinguish different strands is also encountered in sources that really should know better: the following excerpt is from the latest New Statesman:

Lebanon is once again being divided by factionalism - but this time within the same religion, a situation that even the old civil war failed to provoke.

Imagine something similar being written about Northern Ireland, and the fatuity of it becomes clear. So, to echo Gracchi, let us stop bandying about the term "Islam" (or, indeed, Christianity, Judaism, atheism, the English, the Russians...) and be very clear in our discussions about exactly what we mean.

Seven of the Best? Bah, Inflation...

So, and you and I both have Bel to thank for this, the seven best things I have done this year. Is that best as in what I have enjoyed most, or best as in what will benefit my fellow man or woman most? My neighbour is part of a group working for world peace by improving themselves first, which you'll immediately think sounds like a terribly Hebden Bridge thing to be doing, but then again there's no denying a powerful sense of calm, generosity and openness radiates from her, and her presence improves our street no end. So I will elide the distinction, and crack on with the list:

1. Moving to Hebden Bridge. An old mill town nestling in the Calder valley, with a population verging towards the hippy side away from the chavs, no chain shops unless you count the co-op, and everything within walking distance.
   


2. Taking this photograph:

3. Signing up for the Blogpower iniative. There, that's the obligatory mention out of the way. Mind you, it would still get in here on merit, all admin obligations aside.
   


4. Tracking down again the first album by Chris Wood and Andy Cutting. I saw them play live several times when I was still doing my first degree, consummate musicianship and glorious tunes, especially the more melancholy slower numbers. I had it on cassette (that's how long ago it was), and lost it, or at any rate got it chewed up. I now have it on CD and pretty much constant repeat on my MP3 player. It may even prod me to get the old squawkbox out again, although that particular blog niche has been filled for some time.
   


5. Acquiring a recumbent bicycle to save my back from the agony of a diamond-frame machine. I have to attend to the gearing, though - anyone got a three-speed chainset they don't need? (Honourable mention in the cycling category: winning a brand-new cycle luggage trailer off E-bay for £3.20, but demoted because I bet that episode won't be on the seller's equivalent list. Maybe I should tag him, just for curiosity's sake, like?)
   


6. Being able to spend so much time each day with my Imaginary Friend and Ms. Dynamite-E-e: I know what it is to work twelve-hour factory shifts, the effect changing shift patterns have on your personal life, to work full-time yet still only have £20 a week clear for food, drink and other life essentials after the rent and bills are paid. So when I whinge about the travails of post-graduate life, believe me I know really that it's all relative. For me to get funding that allows me to research my thesis but also to spend so much time with my loved ones, well, I reckon that's a pretty good thing to do.
   


7. Managing to write two more chapters for the magnum opus. Ee, I'm dead clever and that, me.
   

There you are, then. I bet you're pleased you asked. Right, I hereby hand the baton on to the following: Shane Meadows, David Fincher, John Sturges, Akira Kurosawa, Walt Disney and Ingmar Bergman. Being dead or, worse still, blogless will not be considered acceptable excuses for failure to complete the assignment. There's a reason beyond the immediately obvious behind that selection, and in the spirit of yuletide quizzes, a small prize awaits. Answers on a postcard in the comments, please.

Warholier than thou

Warholier than thou

Originally uploaded by Imagined Community.

In that time-honoured yet non-denominational salutation:

Season's Greetings!

We Allus Called it 'Tig' When I Were a Lad

Bel has been good enough to tag me with the seven best... meme that I had hoped was going to pass me,going on the last time I was mentioned in connection with it. Thanks. That will teach me to get my Christmas disclaimer in early. Mind you, it does give me an excuse for a seasonal ho-ho-ho at Justin's expense, courtesy of Nosemonkey, .

As I commented to Bel, you ought to know I have TEFL experience, so I'm in possession of a vast arsenal of conversational activities that have only one aim: to compel hapless bloggers students to produce quantities of language. And that, let's face it, is as good a definition of a meme as you'll find this early on a Sunday morning. You will all, mark my words, rue the day you tolerated this sort of thing.

If I can do six other good things over the next 48 hours, then my seven will grudgingly be revealed on Boxing Day. I do hope you can find things to keep yourselves amused between now and then.

... Then They Came for the Bloggers?

Further to the controversy over the new owners of Livejournal in Russia:

Russians do in blogs what few can in media: argue
By Olesya Dmitracova
December 18,

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Free and open debate has become a rarity in Russia's media which is mostly controlled by the state or business moguls.

In a country where three high-profile journalists have been murdered since 1991, many believe speaking out can cost you your life.

So many independent thinkers escape to a virtual space free of vested interests where anonymity goes hand in hand with a worldwide reach -- personal online journals or blogs.

"In the West, you don't need to look for some additional place where you can discuss politics, books, different events," blogger and sociologist Ekaterina Alyabyeva said.

"Civil society is exactly where that happens. In Russia, that doesn't happen anywhere because our press, our media don't give their readers an opportunity to talk back."

Today's bloggers follow the tradition of the Soviet dissidents who found an outlet for their opinions in samizdat, the clandestine printing of anti-government material.

The tight control over the media once exercised by the ruling Communist Party collapsed after the end of the Soviet era but Russian President Vladimir Putin has halted and reversed the trend to greater press freedom.

The Kremlin has tightened controls on the media, especially the main television stations, and this, combined with its domination of the political scene, has fueled Western concerns that Russia is entering a new period of authoritarian rule.

Putin, who is due to step down in 2008, has said he neither can nor wants to curb media freedom.

However, the perception that this is indeed what is happening is driving more and more Russians to the Internet.

Russians are the second-largest group of bloggers on the popular U.S.-based blog-hosting site, livejournal.com. Some 680,000 registered livejournal (LJ) users write in Cyrillic script and are considered mostly Russian speakers.

Alongside debate on government policies, LJ blogs by Masha Gaidar and Ilya Yashin, both well-known leaders of liberal political movements, often advertise protests or debates.

"(Political activists) want to see whether they can manipulate this flexible reality and then transfer it into the actual reality," Alyabyeva said.

CENSORSHIP FEARS

Unlike more intimate U.S. blogs, Russian cyber-journals often involve thousands of bloggers and focus on issues like politics or literature.

"Blogs are a new kind of journalism. It is journalism of opinions rather than journalism of facts," says 25-year-old blogger Elizaveta Dobkina.

Just how dear Russians hold the freedom of expression provided by blogging became clear during the controversy sparked when Russian online media company SUP bought a license in October to become the main provider of LJ to Russian users.

Many bloggers have linked SUP's managers to the government and worried the Kremlin would be able to read and censor their blogs or obtain their personal information from SUP.

Such links are extremely difficult to prove in Russia where government transparency is still a relatively novel idea, but the widespread fears exposed an undercurrent of anxiety among those who wish to speak out and challenge government policies.

"One of the strange things about this transaction is that people are making all sorts of wild speculations about it," SUP director Andrew Paulson told Reuters.

An American who has lived in Russia for 13 years, Paulson said Russian LJ had "a unique, gloriously vibrant community very much specific to Russia."

The purchase of the Russian LJ license was aimed at improving services for Russian bloggers by adding features that are available to speakers of other languages to gain more users and boost profits, he said.

But some LJ bloggers remain sceptical.

"Is it possible to opt out of this feature?" wrote Russian-speaking blogger aleck. "I just do not want any of my files ... being located outside the U.S."

Another blogger, keisinger, said: "I do not wish to get any help from SUP. Is it possible for me to not have anything to do with them?"

Dobkina said people were less inhibited online but dangers similar to those facing Soviet dissidents still existed.

"It's very relaxing and very liberating because you feel like no one can find you.

"(But) I think it is absolutely clear that given the right technology ... anyone can read all posts," she said.

Russia's secret police service, the FSB, did not reply to a formal Reuters query about their ability to obtain information on Internet users.

Via Johnson's Russia List 2006 #283. Apologies for the absence of a direct link to the actual article.

Technical Notes

Well, I made the switch to Beta, and I'm not sure I should have bothered. Yes, the labels are nice, but unless I've missed it, I can't find a way in to manually edit the template and my additions in the sidebar without scratching my head over that dratted drag-and-drop business. If you bother to look at the source code, you'll see it's a bit of a quick-and-dirty job at the moment.My aims are,firstly, how to widen slightly the main posting area (it's either that or lose the border around images) and, secondly, has anyone got any idea of how I can get rid of the mess around the Blogpower banner?

On the other hand, I'm quite taken with the new colour scheme, and I'm pleased to have finally found a use for my del.ici.ous (or wherever the damn dots go) account: I can keep track of the various threads I'm either ruminating on or actively commenting on. There will be the odd other item of general interest that comes in now and then, as well. *Update* Bel has done a similar thing differently.

Wintersmith

Caution: contains small spoiler.

I wrote some time ago about the contrast between male intelligence and female wisdom in Terry Pratchett's oeuvre. Well, blow me down, in Wintersmith he seems to develop this idea more fully:

At the moment three small fireballs circled the fire. Annagramma had made them. You could slay enemies with them, she'd said. They made the others uneasy. It was wizard magic, showy and dangerous. Witches preferred to cut enemies dead with a look. There was no sense in killing your enemy. How would she know you'd won?

Annagramma is the protege of Mrs Earwig, whose brand of witchcraft is "wizard magic with a dress on". Annagramma later becomes the first of the younger witches to be granted her own cottage (think GP's practice, as an inadequate metaphor), but for all her mastery of showy magic she is hopelessly out of her depth: she has no bedside manner, no practical skills to bring to the ill and the elderly. Without the less glamorous girls, the ones who know sheep, pigs and people, rallying round in support, she would be lost.

If I read him correctly, Pratchett is suggesting that witchcraft is an equal mix of psychology and hard graft, with magic available but only to be used as a last resort, and with great respect. On the other hand, wizardry, at least in his more recent depictions of it, can be equated to high technology in our world. It's powerful, but amoral; all too easily reached for, and little thought taken for the consequences.

In that previous post on Pratchett, I suggested that the Discworld is a mirror for our own, and that he acts as a conscience for the nation. I don't believe it is entirely implausible to use this wizardry/witchcraft dichotomy as a possible prism through which to view Western foreign policy, specifically the neo-con project. The use in isolation of wizard magic highly sophisticated military technology has signally failed in Iraq. If only they had tried a little witchcraft hard graft to rebuild the shattered infrastructure, and psychology to understand the Iraqis, it might be a different story. If the same mindset had been applied earlier still, it might never even have come to war.

May your hearths be warm and hearts be joyful this solstice night.

Last Days

No, I'm not expecting the Rapture any time soon. I'm not expecting it any time at all, really, despite ominous rumblings from the Persian Gulf (hat-tip). I'm thinking more of the sense of impending doom surrounding the current administration. Guido's commenters, with their usual sense of taste and restraint, are talking about listening for the gunshot from the bunker, but that in some ghastly way elevates the current bunch of mediocrities. Good grief, did I really just write that a comparison to the Nazi regime would elevate this bunch? My rancour is deeper than I thought...

No, the flashback that I keep having is to the Major administration. It, too, was clearly past its sell-by date: it too had no coherent policies left; it too was mired in corruption; its members too had no conception of their relation to reality, or thought that they could alter that reality solely with the power of their pronouncements. The only thing to do was watch with a grim fascination as they hung on for dear life, wondering why they put themselves through it.

And yet the comparison is not perfect: what sets this mob apart is their incompetence. Major had rail privatisation, surely the epitome (so far) of disastrous legislation, but at least he was able to get it implemented in the way he wanted. I note in contrast that there's another nail in the coffin of the wretched ID card and database project, although I can't summon up any glee. Oh, the other defining difference is their murderousness - Major at least had the sense not to get embroiled in some neo-imperialist adventure based on faulty or false premises. In 1997, there was a collective sigh of relief, a flexing of tense shoulder muscles. Were you still up for Portillo?

Yet, in less than ten years, the same sense of ennui and fatigue has set in. Blair has wasted two landslide majorities that he could have used to implement a truly progressive agenda. Now, he will only be remembered, damned, for one thing. Brown, the successor whom Blair cannot even bring himself to anoint, shows no signs of offering anything different. But where Blair at least showed promise, Cameron shows no signs of offering anything at all. Justin shows how even the New Statesman, not normally the cruellest inquisitors of New Labour politicians, have put the boot in to Margaret Beckett, and how she does herself no favours. Now Guido has been all over the New Statesman like a rash (e.g.), claiming that it's Brown's mouthpiece. But surely Beckett has never been a serious rival to Gordon? Is there anyone left in New Labour that has both a shred of credibility and any chance of real influence? Scratch that, is there anyone such left in politics?

I feel like we're a nation now of bored teenage boys, picking the legs off spiders and watching them squirm, except that here the spiders have pulled the legs off themselves. I've no desire to put them out of their misery, I just wonder how much longer the whole sorry spectacle can drag on for. The 2005 film Last Days ends with Kurt Cobain the main protagonist taking a shotgun to himself, which apparently comes as a great relief to all who sit through it. Blair pulled his metaphorical trigger some while ago, but that's the slowest-acting cartridge I ever heard of.

Noms de plume, hors de combat

The Imaginary Friend, Ms Dynamite-E-e and I are off to York for a few days in what seems to have become a pre-Christmas ritual. We'll leave the house in the somnolent paws of Tonic and Lepsy (so no winners, I'm afraid), and that's the extent of the daft pseudonyms you're liable to meet on a regular basis in this community.

Back on Wednesday, but unlikely to be posting until Thursday morning at the earliest. In a first for this establishment, I can guarantee entertaining and thought-provoking postings: please consult the blogrolls located conveniently to your right.

Don't say a prayer for me now...

Bel has been hosting a lively discussion about the easy availability of the morning-after pill. My own view is that they should indeed be easily available. Quite apart from the principle that the only person to have a say in what a woman does with her body should be that woman herself, it strikes me as self-evident that the far lesser evil is that she should decide that she does not want the complications of a pregnancy at that particular stage in her life than, potentially (I know that not all parents react in this way) to bear an unwanted and unplanned child towards whom she may grow resentful. I'm thinking here not only of the mother-to-be but also of the child and of society at large.

That's right, I did mention the child, as well as society. Far be it from me to condemn an individual to spending their formative years in a loveless environment. That fate would be, in itself, a fairly conclusive argument for me.

The societal argument is less compelling for me, but those of a utilitarian bent might want to consider the social costs of growing up in an unstable environment. Here, I'm coming close to arguments put forward by Morag, although I think we draw different conclusions: I'm not convinced by the importance of marriage, per se, but I do believe there's a lot to be said for a stable and loving home, however that family is constituted.

But that's not what I want to examine here, because after all the debate is going on round at Bel's, although I would have felt uncomfortable if I had not discussed it at all. No, what intrigues me is something I noted at the end of my (perhaps overly-long) comment: "the very terms of the debate can be inflammatory". I have to admit I saw red at Bel's use of the term "abortion pill". That, I had thought, was unnecessarily provocative, as abortion is famously a divisive issue, and I was going to criticise her use of it.

But then I consider the term in common use: "morning-after pill". Innocuous, isn't it? No hint of the physical unpleasantness involved in forcibly ridding the body of an egg that may or may not have been fertilised, or the longer-term consequences, not to mention the emotional issues. It's just as likely to cause the red-mist to descend in those who think differently to me, and I believe from what Bel has written that she is responding at least in part to these connotations of trivialisation. I personally don't believe that the decision to take such a pill is ever made lightly, but I don't necessarily help my case by unthinkingly using a term that suggests it is.

So is there a term available which is less aggravating, and would thus allow the discussion to be conducted with calmer minds on all sides? I can only come up with "emergency contraception", which seems to me to connote more seriousness, but it still strikes me as euphemistic. I am open to suggestions.


Ignore this, it's just a tag: morning-after pill
Ignore this, it's just a tag: contraception
Ignore this, it's just a tag: abortion pill

Oh, do shut up, Katrina

This news just in, courtesy of That Friday Thing. Some reaction here (scroll up from the bottom).

I'm put in mind of the line Eddie Lawler used to describe the increasing gentrification of Saltaire: he knew things were getting pretentious when he heard a local lass calling to her Rottweiler: "Come here, Rimbaud". I suppose, though, that living in Hebden I haven't got room to crow. I know at least three children called Jago. Can anyone expand on Wikipedia to explain why that should have become so popular as a boy's name, at least round here?

I was going to say, in the interests of fully disclosing my, er, interests, that Eddie is the only poet that I have met, to my knowledge, given that his wife used to teach me Russian. Mind you, my mum reckons New Statesman favourite Ian McMillan sounds just like her cousin from Barnsley - Mr McMillan was good enough to autograph a photo to that effect - and I've seen him in the Oriental Buffet just down from Leeds market, although granted not to speak to. I live just up the road from where Ted Hughes was born, and just down the road from where Sylvia Plath lies buried.

And way back when, when my dad and his dad used to work together, I went on holiday to Wales with Simon Armitage. Like that with the stars, me. Who, not necessarily restricted to poets, have you met?


Ignore this, it's just a tag: SimonArmitage
Ignore this, it's just a tag: IanMcMillan
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Eddie Lawler
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Ted Hughes
Ignore this, it's just a tag: Sylvia Plath
Ignore this, it's just a tag: poets

Untranslatable Russian Folklore

Кажется, тут водятся русско-говогящие. Ладно, посмотрим. После рождения нашей дочери, Воображаемый Друг нашла много полездного в книге "Буддизм для матерей". Я, собственно, жду второй том: "Материнство для буддистов".


Ignore this, it's just a tag: Russian
Ignore this, it's just a tag: bilingualpuns

To Beta or not to Beta?

Have you switched? Should I?

Small, but perfectly formed

James Higham deserves a round of applause for this initiative, one which the eagle-eyed among you will realise I've already signed up to. There are various reasons, some more pressing than others. It isn't just the traffic, I'm largely with Not Saussure who says that he's basically in this for his own amusement. There's a famous question "Who are you going to please with that?", the answer being "me". But any written piece implies at least the possibility of a reader - hell, with my stats, the possibility is as much as I can hope for - so I'd be lying if I said I cared nothing at all for how many people drop by. Anyway, this stuff comes from the same brain that's just been published in Private Eye, so at least some of it reaches a threshold that suggests it's worth reading by more than do at the moment.

And that comes closer to my main reason. Although I think this sort of writing has something in common with playing music, in that if I don't like the sound it makes then nobody else will either, there's a great danger of complacency setting in. If there's an active, critical readership commenting, then I'll be spurred on to more consistent quality. I hope. What attracts me about my fellow blog-potentiaries is the range of opinions they hold. My blogroll is relatively unadventurous, in that there aren't so many blogs on there that I read while disagreeing with (although there are some). Fellow travellers are all well and good, but sometimes a bracing exchange of views does more to help settle my own position.

The other aspect is frequency of posting. The Blogpower manifesto suggests ten posts a week. Well, you only have to look down a post to see my last was six weeks ago. It's the first rule of blogging that to get and keep readers you need to post stuff. So, again, signing up should give me that spur.

This, I should say, is my initial response to Blogpower. There may well be more to come. If you have arrived here from there, then welcome. I'll be doing the rounds myself over the next day or so.



Ignore this, it's just a tag: blogpower